Reviews from

in the past


"Are you ready for the sexualising minors in your story lesson?"

Kazutaka Kodaka gulped.

Katsura Hashino nodded.

Nisio Isin blinked nervously.

"Yes, Gen Urobuchi" they said in unison.

the fuck does "completed on blu-ray player" mean

I'm not sure if I could trust anyone that actually likes this visual novel if I'm being real. I honestly only played this because I had "Saya's Song" stuck in my head for like a week and thought to myself at 1 AM today to finally give the stupid VN a go (knowing I wasn't going to like it). Anyways I did manage to play it through in like 3 sittings since it was short but Jesus Christ was it actually awful. I also got every ending so before any dudebro with nonce particles inside them gets rowdy thinking I only got one ending or something, CALM DOWN.

I liked certain concepts of the game such as Saya being a sort of "idol" to Fuminori, but I genuinely wished the game didn't try cramming down stupid unnecessary sex scenes down our throats like "heh... isn't this EVIL and DARKSIDED? take a glimpse at Urobuchi's DARK and TWISTED mind... heh". Like great, thanks Urobuchi I don't like you. Everyone and their grandma is like nnooo nooo these sexual scenes are supposed to cement how far gone Fuminori is and how he's losing his humanity and like it's to show how he and Saya are the only lonely people in each other's worlds and- BLAH BLAH BLAH I DONT CARE. IT SUCKS. If I'm being real the sex scenes with Fuminori feel like an excuse for men to find a way to feel aroused during these scenes because clearly they were trying to hit some sort of erotic points for the reader. There are so many things that could have been done better to still prove that Fuminori is a horrible human being without it resorting to sex. I had to keep skipping the h scenes and their dialogue because why would any sane person want to see a grown ass man doing all of that to someone who looks like a ten year old. If I had a nickel for how many times I saw the word manhood as a replacement for the word penis I'd have enough money to fly to Japan and drop an anvil on Urobuchi's head.

Anyways, I just don't appreciate how pessimistic and misanthropic this visual novel is, and I guess I'm glad I finally played through this myself so I can mentally throw rocks and strike people with psychic beams anytime I see someone praise this horrendous piece of slop.

baby's first nitroplus. i think the tone and style and presentation pulled me in so much i was willing to look past the lack of substance (or should i say MEAT) in the script. thankfully, there's a lot more games like this that are more tightly written and fleshed out.

Primeira Review de 2024, e também, primeiro jogo terminado em 2024. Saya no uta é uma visual novel de horror e gore, que conseguiu ser muito melhor do que eu esperava, pelo menos no começo. Essa review porém, vai ter um sistema de notas diferentes, para jogos que se limitam apenas a contar história. Então é isso, vaamos lá:

História[5/5]: Saya no Uta tem 3 finais possíves. Todos eles na minha concepção, sendo bastante distintos, e bastante tristes. Não existe necessariamente um final bom em Saya no Uta, até por que o que os personagens passam nessa história é apenas tragédia atrás de tragédia, que na minha opinião atinge o seu apice antes da primeira escolha que é feita. A lore da Saya, junto com a forma como o mistério é construído, mostram como foi bem construído a história desse jogo. Diria que essa história em espécifica foi a mais macabra e aterrorizante, não só pelo POV do protagonista, mas pela visão geral de tudo.

Narrativa[2/5]: Quem não fica espantando com as duas primeiras horas desse jogo está morto por dentro. É terrível e trágico, e isso é muito bem exposto dentro do jogo. Mas apesar de ter entregado um bom terror, esse jogo tem um terrível problema na MINHA OPINIÃO é claro. As cenas de sexo, são desnecessárias e até fora de mais da curva. No inicio quando acontece a primeira cena, eu imaginei que era apenas para causar uma certa estranheza no que estava rolando, a cena só estava ali para deixar muito mais bizarro toda a história, talvez até mostrar que tem um romance ali. Porém depois disso foi só laderia a abaixo, se era essa a ideia mesmo, eu não consegui encarar dessa forma. Senti que era apenas fetichização pura. E chega a estragar bastante a obra, me fazendo até a desanimar e parar de assistir na metade. Levei pouco mais de 2 semanas para voltar a jogar apenas pelo fato de que perde o total interesse. Além de que, no inicio da segunda metade, ou melhor, na primeira escolha do jogo, eu sinto que o jogo se perde totalmente na questão de terror, e foca mais na tragédia apenas. Sinto que isso deve por que, todas as cartas foram jogadas na mesa de uma vez, e agora o jogo apenas tenta desenvolver a história e explicar todos os mistérios. Não desgosto, mas acho que ele muda muito a forma e isso causa um desanimo talvez.

Arte[4/5]: O jogo no geral é lindo, até as cenas de gore ou as cenas que são para ser "feias", são muito bem desenhadas. Eu diria que o único problema é alguns sprites dos personagens estar mal desenhados. Mas no geral o jogo é bem bonito. Os cenários pelo menos são bonitos demais, e devo elogiar que sair da visão do prota e ir para a visão dos outros personagens bem no inicio da Novel tráz um ar grande de satisfação, fazendo essa visão oposto ser muito agrádavel e me fazer sentir bem imerso no jogo.

Trilha-sonora[5/5]: Simplesmente um álbum musical, com uma história por trás. A trilha sonora desse jogo é MUITO BOA, de fato torna o jogo muito melhor, elas se repetem bastante, mas isso não é problema por que são muito boas e vale bastante a pena. Acho até que a trilha-sonora se destaca mais do que o jogo inteiro em si. Muito bem feita.

Personagens[4.5/5]: Eu sempre valorizo mais o elenco de personagens de uma VN do que a própria VN. É sempre importante ter personagens carismáticos e interessantes, que torna o tempo de tela dele sempre divertido. Saya no Uta, tem um bom elenco de personagens tirando a Yoh que na minha opinião é apenas o mais do mesmo. O restante é muito bem desenvolvidos e bem apresentados. E mesmo com pouco tempo de tela, alguns até conseguem deixar uma marca trágica em nossas mentes.

Geral[4,1/5]: Quando eu dei uma pausa desse jogo, eu imagenei que quando terminasse ele teria no máximo um 3.5 de nota. Os dois últimos finais que vi salvaram bastante ele na minha opinião. É um jogo bom que é estragado pelas cenas de sexo, então tirando isso é um ótimo jogo na minha opinião. É isso, se for jogar se prepare por que o terror e o horror gráfico desse jogo são absurdos de mais, e pode deixar você sem dormir a noite. Mas é isso, um ótimo jogo!


Poorly written edgelord shit.

This review contains spoilers

I always say, true art makes you feel stuff. This made me feel all sort of stuff. Anger, fear, uneasyness, hapiness. Dunno but it's a lot.

At first I though the thing on the image was basically a kid. But it's not, just a very thin girl and a monster. Yeah that thing there, it ain't real chief.

Our main hero fucks this chick that made me angry at first because I though I got tricked into playing a porn game for weirdos, but in reality he's fucking something entirely different because schizophrenia. He lives with her too and never leaves house. Perfect right? Hmm...

The endings are what they are, endings to the story but there is one that is depraved but beautiful, and describes this game perfectly.

It's a horror game, and the psychological one games or stories seem to have lost with time. It'll make you feel a ton of things. You won't be the same after it, at least the first week.

This review contains spoilers

Has a strong hook and an interesting concept that is ultimately bogged down by a lack of any substance whatsoever. While the score is fantastic, I'm afraid I can't give the story the same praise - it's edgy torture porn that leaves much to be desired.

I think it does a great job at setting a tone, and it's packed with some genuinely chilling scenes - the mystery, disgust, and morbid curiosity I felt going through them had me on the edge of my seat, and that's one of the few things I'll give this game credit for. The h-scenes, however, were completely unnecessary; there's one in particular that serves no purpose to the plot other than appealing to the author's barely disguised rape fetish. And in the off-chance it's not that, it's just a cheap way of making the story "dark" with minimal effort.

The plot itself was barebones. The build-up was there, but the climax was unsatisfying no matter what ending I got. And while I can normally appreciate a game that leaves me unsettled and uncomfortable, by the time I reached the final ending I just had a sour taste in my mouth from how cheap and pointless it all felt.

The characters were just... boring, too. I found myself mixing up the main character's friends names so many times it's not even funny. Saya herself was interesting for about a minute, but it felt like the author got too tired to finish developing her and decided to whip his dick out instead. She spends about half of her screen time having sex and sucking the cock of the most irredeemable protagonist ever conceived in fiction.

There genuinely could've been something here - the twisted relationship between the protagonist and Saya could've been so much more, and it frustrates me that the author chose to make it so shallow and honestly gross. There's a few attempts to dive into psychology - particularly the fragility of the human psyche - but they ultimately don't lead anywhere other than highlighting the apathy and despair these characters feel.

Honestly, I'm disappointed that such an incredible OST was wasted on something like this, because it was the track "Song of Saya" that got me curious about the game in the first place.

It has some cool ideas and I ended up reading it all the way through, but ultimately, I don't think I'd ever read this again. I don't recommend it unless you've got thick skin, a strong stomach for gore, and enough self-loathing to justify making a purchase like this.

something something the developer's barely disguised loli rape fetish something something

Um história de horror cósmico pique Lovecraft e Stephen King.
Aborda temas muito pesados como o mental do protagonista fudido e como uma gota de anormalidade pode acabar com a vida de qualquer ser humano.
Os cenários são muito grotescos e bem desenhados quase sempre sendo um amontoado de carne, os personagens na visão do Fuminori são monstros de carne podre que vomitam sangue.
Seu relacionamento com Saya é de quebrar o coração
(me fizeram ter simpatia de um alien kk)
A música é muito boa tendo trechos de terror, uns rock bizarrão e uma música muito calma.
Um ótimo vn pra quem gosta de horror psicológico.


This review contains spoilers

i love the concept of fucked up meat/bile/organ vision and alongside the incredible score it's really easy to get engrossed within the opening minutes. unfortunately it ends up being wasted on a story with a few good moments and too many shameful scenes which serve no purpose besides sexual gratification. even outside of those incredibly distasteful scenes it still often ends up too edgy for its own good, the unfitting score choice during koji and fuminori's final confrontation as well as koji's conversation with his hallucination during his ending come to mind. i think the endings themselves are all pretty interesting but the fast pace the last two take to come to their conclusions are a bit unsatisfying. it's all a real shame because it could absolutely be something way better than it is

A masterpiece it is not but it is hauntingly beautifull, i do think a later reread will help a lot but from what i read im satisfied, amazing music and eerie atmosphere as well as for negatives there are definetly parts where urobochi could have held back

"You know the dandelion flower? The one that scatters its seeds on the wind?

The wind carries those fluffy seeds far, far from where they were born. What if one of them ends up in a desert where not even a single blade of grass is growing? If you can imagine how that lone seed will feel... then you might be able to understand me.

That seed is still a baby flower. If it does its best, it can turn even a desert into a garden.

Maybe that little seed will decide to thrive. Maybe it will decide to grow and multiply, so that it can turn the whole desert into a field of dandelions.

What do you think can give it the strength to do so?

All it needs... is to be loved by just one person in the whole desert. All it needs is to be told how pretty dandelions are."

Really amazing visuals and sound are completely overshadowed by the gross stuff. Really astounded some of these reviews completely blow past them. Like I don’t even feel comfortable writing out a one sentence summarization of a certain scene I have in mind. You all really need to be on a list.

All the gross shit is written like erotica, not like horror. There is just weird fetish porn you’re supposed to jerk off to in the middle of your horror media. Imagine if Angela from Silent Hill 2 started giving you jerk off instructions while she’s on the burning staircase. Yeah.

None of this would have happened if Fuminori simply owned an air fryer.

here's john wayne urobuchi in 2003: i want to dress up like a hack and have sex with children and kill them

Was confused when he started killing people. Isn't he the main character? Aren't the main character supposed to be a good guy?

saya no uta is a miserable, unforgettable, intriguing and captivating experience.
i do have my issues with it - i didn't enjoy the sex scenes. i do understand that this is an eroge, but unfortunately to me it seemed like these scenes were placed with the purpose of shocking the viewer and being transgressive. i didn't enjoy it, so i chose to read the censored steam version, which was more particular to my tastes and i enjoyed it more. i do enjoy transgressive fiction (i am a visual novel reader, after all), but unfortunately i didn't enjoy the sex scenes, let alone the rape scenes. if you're like me and don't enjoy those, i'd definitely read it censored, it didn't take away anything from my full experience.
with it's shortness, i'd definitely recommend this game for new vn readers, specially those who are interested in a cosmic horror. it was the story that got me into visual novels back in 2020, and it's an experience i'll never forget.
the music is extremely remarkable, specially the game's opening track "schizophrenia" - the song truly grips with it's violent noise and twisted sounds, setting the mood for the entirety of the game.
saya no uta made me fall in love this type of cosmic horror mixing beauty and depravity, the enticing visuals of the flesh and gore, mixed with the alluring beauty of human-like creatures.
this story expertly understands the depravity of desperation, of grasping at straws for a semblance of humanity in times of misery.
even though the story has many flaws, i fully believe saya no uta deserves the praise it gets.

Song of Saya is a great visual novel: compelling and horrifying yet emotionally resonant. An excellently-written, mature story that handles its subject matter so well that it managed to make even the worst fucking thing imaginable pretty and sympathetic. There are sex scenes, yes, but they're not there to cheapen the story with waifu bullshit, or 'reward' the player. Much like its other elements, Song of Saya masterfully weaves eroticism into the tale without letting it fall to plain old titillation. Everything was well done: mystery, horror, a bit of biological philosophy... and love.

It's worth getting all three endings as it's not a long read, and there are only three choices to make in the entire story - this isn't a very player-driven VN. In my opinion, that's a good thing, as it's entertaining enough to just let it play out. Cozy up, lie back, press the Auto button and enjoy a story that's touching and depraved. This is one VN that's as worth your time reading as any book.

i'm gonna steal something from urobutchi's goddamn house

this is bad because bad stuff happens in it and the main character is immoral and not a good guy.

Algumas coisas se salvam, tipo a história e o suspense. Mas no geral achei mais ou menos. Eu acho que não foi lá uma boa VN para começar a ler as obras da Nitroplus, mas ela conseguiu me entreter um pouco, é uma experiência bacana, mas não “uau, que VN foda, única!!”

I played 1 hour of this until I was dumbfounded, my friends and partner found out and told me to get a refund.

I was still curious about one element of the narrative so I watched someone read through it on YouTube....

Best decision I ever made was refunding it. I know my friends got my back ♡

Also thanks Steam.

I realized the other day that I owned this on steam, for some reason, and decided it would be funny to see how awful the censored version of Saya no Uta is. In the end I just patched it anyways and did a normal reread because i thought maybe I would like it more now around 7 years since I originally read it. Well, my thoughts have barely changed. It still mostly sucks. For what it's worth, the beginning of this vn is a great hook, and conceptually it's really not all that bad. At it's best the ideas here are a little reminiscent of Clive Barker's horror short stories. You've got the sex and intense gore, and the core idea of people going crazy because a demon made them see the world as a pulsating meat dimension would be right at home in Books of Blood. Where Saya no Uta falls off completely is in the execution. I liked Madoka Magica a lot, so I don't think Gen Urobuchi is a bad writer, but he clearly learned a lot since he made this. Even if the ideas here were handled better I doubt it would save the story, which suffers from a short runtime and tonal issues as well. You don't have any time to get attached to the characters before they die or go insane, and everything involving the crazy doctor character is pure schlock. It's more fun than the Saya/Fuminori stuff, don't get me wrong, but it's incredibly stupid and it doesn't help that the Lovecraft-inspired (I say that as loosely as possible) tone feels entirely unearned. I don't mind authors alluding to works that inspired them, but the plot here doesn't mesh with Lovecraft's works whatsoever and the lore dump near the ending over-explaining the monster and it's goals robs the narrative of any potential mystery. However, despite my numerous issues with the story itself, I actually found myself liking all three of the endings this time. The first and second are the most thematically fulfilling, but the third is still sort of fun. It's probably not worth suffering through the rest of the vn to get to them, but oh well. And, as everyone who hates or loves this game already knows, the presentation is great. The soundtrack is incredible and the backgrounds and sound design set the tone perfectly. I get why people love Saya no Uta, there's a lot of quality here, but ultimately almost none of it makes it's way into the actual writing. Too short and far too focused on shocking the reader to say anything meaningful.


i really liked the concepts and the beginning of the story but everything goes downhill as the story proceeds, not in a good way. everything is just so needlessly edgy, making it such a hollow story

Há 800 anos atrás, em 1223, São Francisco de Assis criou o primeiro presépio da história e não incluiu nenhuma representação humana, e em Saya no Uta fica claro o motivo dessa ausência, o homem cego pelo pecado não enxerga o próprio pai e muito menos o próprio caminho, sendo mais tolo que o mais irracional dos animais, já que estes sabem quem é seu dono e onde é sua casa.

Fuminori é o mais fraco dos homens, não sendo nada mesmo perante o mais insignificante dos insetos, não é mais dono de si próprio, delegando essa posição a um ser maligno e ao próprio pecado per se. Desde o começo ele ignora a si e coloca sua felicidade e razão de viver a cargo de uma terceira, atitude que muitos “homens”, incapazes de se desenvolver, fazem e acabam tendo o mesmo final de Fuminori, podemos observar isso na negligência com seu tratamento no início do jogo. Não são as mesmas situações, mas são paralelos equivalentes, milhares de Fuminoris se matam (homens são maioria em churrascamentos) diariamente pelo mesmo erro, pela mesma fraqueza.

Saya, o que dizer, se não apenas parafrasear seu próprio pai: “Agora ele se declarou como uma “forma de vida que precisa de esperma masculino”, ele se considerou uma “mulher””. Sendo assim, a forma de vida abandona seu status supostamente superior para descer ao humano, e consequentemente se destruindo por essência, já que nunca seria humana, pois não havia sido depositado uma alma em meio aquele amontoado de células, Saya tinha menos vida que um embrião, e nunca sairia dessa posição não importando quanto esperma tomasse ou quantos Fuminoris enganasse para tentar entender o que é o amor humano.

Diferente do ideal do amor a waifu, isento do profano feminino e fruto da manifestação do ego do portador, portanto genuíno, onde este só tem a ganhar já que realiza a si próprio um efeito Pigmalião o qual o desenvolve e estimula ao crescimento, Saya só suga, suga a sanidade, suga os recursos, suga a energia vital e entrega apenas farsas e caos, nada tem para o bem, mesmo que pareça o oposto, que ela é inocente e quer ajudar seu suposto amado, os fatos são concretos, e o fim é absoluto, professor Ougai que o diga.

Pode ser fetichista em alguns momentos, acredito que seja, mas em meus olhos foram a definição gráfica de perdição e tristeza, tristeza essa que se expandia a cada minuto de leitura, incapaz de sentir qualquer emoção se não repulsa, tristeza e ódio, prossegui o caminho forjado pelos perdidos. No entanto, em meio ao caos me surgia um fogo em meu amago, algo que me dizia que eu deveria ser forte, para alcançar o extremo oposto do que Fuminori obtinha, o ódio virava um combustível para a esperança de uma salvação improvável. Pena que o Kouji provavelmente não foi atingido pelo mesmo fogo, mas sim por um mais doloroso.

É sim repugnante de formas inexplicáveis, mas com a mentalidade certa a viagem vira uma aula, vejo como uma tragédia, a mostra de como somos suscetíveis a cair em perdição e como devemos lutar para nunca chegar perto de ser fracos como Fuminori.

Mesmo sem ser um primor da escrita, e apresentando recursos baixos, a ousadia da obra é impactante e tem alto valor, sabendo muito bem como explodir o leitor com inúmeras emoções, sem dúvidas sendo algo incontestável.

Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, dona nobis pacem.

not an hour into the game and the mc is having sex with a child

A story delving into the darker side of humanity, definitely not for everyone but I personally found it to be quite interesting and unsettling which I believe was the authors intentions.